Research Centres

Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis (CHEPA)

CHEPA researchers have helped shape Canada’s health system for more than a quarter-century. They continue that tradition today, investigating pressing issues such as the relationship between doctors’ pay and health system costs; ethical concerns related to who gets what care and who has a say in it, and whether evidence supports the health decisions being made.

McMaster Experimental Economics Laboratory (McEEL)

McEEL, the McMaster Experimental Economics laboratory, is the first Canadian laboratory dedicated to experiments in Economics and related disciplines. For further information, see our webpage or contact Stuart Mestelman (mestelma at mcmaster.ca) or Andrew Muller (mullera at mcmaster.ca).

McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought

It is one of the most extensive databases of works by economists in existence today, with texts posted “primarily for the use of students who might not otherwise have access to these writings.” Works by Charles Babbage, William Blake, Adam Ferguson, and David Hume, to name but a few, are included at the site, which will continue to be maintained at McMaster.

Productivity Partnership

The Network to Study Productivity in Canada from a Firm-Level Perspective aims to engage researchers interested in studying Canada’s productivity challenge. The project is funded by a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant and awarded to a team of Canadian researchers with Principal Investigator Mike Veall, who is joined on the steering committee by Annette Ryan (Employment and Social Development Canada) and Don Drummond (Queen's University). The project’s goal is to increase the flow of existing knowledge (including data), and add to existing research capacity by bringing together thinkers from academia, public and private sectors, and funding their scholarly research.

Public Economics Data Analysis Laboratory (PEDAL)

PEDAL is a secure facility that may be accessed at McMaster and remotely. Its purpose is to provide researchers with a facility where they may transform administrative data sets into research ready data sets, conduct online surveys, and conduct their research analysis. PEDAL also is involved in training students and researchers.

Research Institute for Quantitative Studies in Economics and Population (QSEP)

The Research Institute for Quantitative Studies in Economics and Population is an interdisciplinary program based in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Its purpose is to encourage and facilitate faculty research in economics and other areas of the social sciences, with special emphasis on the analysis of population and the relationship between population change and changes in the economy and society.

Research Program on the Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population (SEDAP)

Members of the baby boom generation are now between their mid-30s and mid-50s. That will change: in another 30 years the large boom generation will be in "old age". There are now four in the labour force for every person 65 and older; in another three decades (with present trends) there will be fewer than two. That the population will be much older is certain. SEDAP is concerned with the consequences. Will social programs that were designed to provide for the well-being of older people when they were fewer be sustained as the numbers swell? Will the burden on the population of working age be so great that the social contract will have to be rewritten? Will access to health care and income support in old age no longer be available? What are the implications for the family, for intergenerational relations and the well-being and functioning of society?

Statistics Canada Research Data Centre at McMaster (RDC)

The Statistics Canada Research Data Centre at McMaster provides research access, in a secure environment, to confidential Statistics Canada master survey files. Most of the files are based on household surveys, some of which are longitudinal in nature. Among them are: the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), the National Population Health Survey (NPHS), and the Workplace and Employee Survey (WES). Graduate students and others are encouraged to work with these data.